Freshwater frustrations

Thursday

Oct 31, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Solutions to the water dispute between Florida, Georgia and Alabama are moving at a snail’s pace, which is bad news for the oysters and other aquatic life in the Apalachicola Bay that are suffering from a lack of freshwater.

Solutions to the water dispute between Florida, Georgia and Alabama are moving at a snail’s pace, which is bad news for the oysters and other aquatic life in the Apalachicola Bay that are suffering from a lack of freshwater.

For 20 years the states have battled over water usage in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, which empties into the bay, with Alabama and Florida accusing Georgia of taking more than its fair share. The metro Atlanta area gets most of its water from the Chattahoochee River, and Georgia’s consumption is expected to nearly double in the next 20 years. That leaves insufficient freshwater downflow for Alabama and Florida.

The resultant rise in salt content has been devastating to Apalachicola Bay, particularly its oyster population that the local economy is so dependent on. The oyster harvest declined 60 percent last year, creating a 44 percent drop in revenue for the oystering industry.

Lawsuits have failed to end the stalemate. In 2011 Georgia won a huge victory when a federal appeals court overturned a lower court and unanimously ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has the authority to allocate additional water to meet Atlanta’s increasing needs. The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal.

That didn’t dissuade Gov. Rick Scott from filing a new suit against Georgia Oct. 1 at the Supreme Court. It was the first time in the water dispute that one state had sued the other (previous litigation had been directed toward the Corps of Engineers).

It’s seen as a Hail Mary play on an issue that more likely will be resolved through congressional action.

Southerland inserted non-binding “sense of Congress” language in the House version of the Water Resources Development Act encouraging the states to cooperate and create agreements on sharing freshwater. Southerland told The News Herald’s Matthew Beaton that he also received assurances from Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., that a Government Accountability Office study would be conducted, reviewing the impact of Georgia’s freshwater consumption. Hopefully that study will prompt movement on the settlement front.

Furthermore, Southerland said that Shuster wants to pass a new WRDA bill every two years, which would give Northwest Florida’s representative more opportunities to influence provisions that could increase freshwater to Apalachicola.

That sounds like a box of glasses half-filled with wishful thinking, starting with the fact that Congress has not passed even one WRDA bill since 2007. Even if everything falls Florida’s way on that legislative front, it likely would take years to pass something substantive that rescues the bay. Apalachicola doesn’t have that time — especially if a drought should hit in the interim, which would greatly exacerbate the problems.

“We’re trying to surround this problem from a lot of different angles,” Southerland told Beaton. That’s the right approach. Unfortunately, Georgia holds the political and legal high ground, while Florida is trying to dislodge its neighbor with spitballs.

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